HUNGARY—Parliament accepts privacy bills

 

Two significant privacy-related bills were accepted by the Hungarian Parliament on 11 July 2011. Both bills are currently awaiting the signature of the president and subsequent publication in order to become law.

The General Privacy Bill repeals Act LXIII of 1992 on the Protection of Personal Data and the Disclosure of Information of Public Interest. Most importantly, the General Privacy Bill establishes a new Data Protection Supervisory Authority, an administrative body instead of the previous independent ombudsman. The new authority shall have an increased scope of authority, including the right to impose fines. The General Privacy Bill also contains the general rules on data privacy, in accordance with the Directive 95/46/EC, such as definitions of personal data and data processing, consent rules, data transfer possibilities, information obligations of data processors and rights and remedies of the persons concerned.

Most sections of the General Privacy Bill shall come into force on 1 January 2012, so data processors will have approximately a half year to ensure compliance with its provisions.

The E-Privacy Bill implements the recent modifications in Directive 2002/58/EC (e-Privacy Directive).

The most important data privacy provisions of the E-Privacy Bill are the following:

1.        mandatory data security breach notification obligation for electronic communications service providers

2.       data controllers are required to obtain consent before installing cookies on the users’ equipment

3.        refinements regarding the rules on unsolicited communications

The E-Privacy Bill shall come into force on the 15

day after it has become a law, so data processors will have a relatively short time to ensure compliance with its provisions.